Thursday, January 8, 2009

Veggies - 20 days later

I was at a customer's restaurant yesterday and got excited when I saw their own vegetable patch in their backyard. They're growing potatoes, spring onions, herbs and some young vegetable seedlings that I couldn't identify.

Anyway, I promised more photos of the vegetables growing in my garden. It has been 20 days. We've had relentless amount of sun and little rain, so I have been watering diligently in the morning and evening.

This is a tray of tomato and eggplant seedlings (below). They're less than 3 weeks old and look at how tiny they are compared to the carrots which I had sowed at the same time.

The carrots (below) have grown so much in less than 3 weeks but I'm rather puzzled what kind of carrot I am growing here. I bought the seeds from a wholesaler. These are sold loosely without any packaging, hence sans instructions or guidelines. The leaves certainly do not look like the typical frilly carrot leaf. Mine are certainly anything but frilly, maybe cos they're Asian carrots. I suppose you'll know when I harvest the carrots. I'm not sure when they'll be harvested but do check back my blog from time to time.The rest of vegetables below were all sowed 20 days ago. Some are growing faster than the others but they're definitely too young to be harvested. I read somewhere that a gardener could harvest baby pak choi in 25 days. I am wondering if I read correctly because my vegetables are nowhere near edible stage yet!The one above with the spiky leaves, without the white labels, is kangkong. Apparently they're the fastest growers in my vegetable garden now.

At this point, I must emphasise that it has been difficult for me to gather information on growing local vegetables even after trawling the internet. I am curious to find out what kind of carrot I am planting and when I can harvest them. I don't want to pull them out when they're too young. My best friend has suggested that I should plant carrots in transparent pipes so that I can monitor the length. Well, trust an engineer to come up with an innovative suggestion. That's a really good one. I should try it next time but first, I must look for transparent pipes.

Heh, actually what I really want to do is sell a box of young vegetable seedlings so that you can set up your own vegetable garden instantly. The plants are strong enough at that stage and will flourish in containers, pots or your backyard as long as they are getting enough sun and water. That way, you can harvest only what you need over a period of time.A company in the UK is doing it very successfully.